@article{UnnikrishnanSchleicherShahetal.2020, author = {Unnikrishnan, Vishnu and Schleicher, Miro and Shah, Yash and Jamaludeen, Noor and Pryss, Ruediger and Schobel, Johannes and Kraft, Robin and Schlee, Winfried and Spiliopoulou, Myra}, title = {The effect of non-personalised tips on the continued use of self-monitoring mHealth applications}, series = {Brain Sciences}, volume = {10}, journal = {Brain Sciences}, number = {12}, issn = {2076-3425}, doi = {10.3390/brainsci10120924}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-219435}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Chronic tinnitus, the perception of a phantom sound in the absence of corresponding stimulus, is a condition known to affect patients' quality of life. Recent advances in mHealth have enabled patients to maintain a 'disease journal' of ecologically-valid momentary assessments, improving patients' own awareness of their disease while also providing clinicians valuable data for research. In this study, we investigate the effect of non-personalised tips on patients' perception of tinnitus, and on their continued use of the application. The data collected from the study involved three groups of patients that used the app for 16 weeks. Groups A \& Y were exposed to feedback from the start of the study, while group B only received tips for the second half of the study. Groups A and Y were run by different supervisors and also differed in the number of hospital visits during the study. Users of Group A and B underwent assessment at baseline, mid-study, post-study and follow-up, while users of group Y were only assessed at baseline and post-study. It is seen that the users in group B use the app for longer, and also more often during the day. The answers of the users to the Ecological Momentary Assessments are seen to form clusters where the degree to which the tinnitus distress depends on tinnitus loudness varies. Additionally, cluster-level models were able to predict new unseen data with better accuracy than a single global model. This strengthens the argument that the discovered clusters really do reflect underlying patterns in disease expression.}, language = {en} } @article{SchobelProbstReichertetal.2020, author = {Schobel, Johannes and Probst, Thomas and Reichert, Manfred and Schlee, Winfried and Schickler, Marc and Kestler, Hans A. and Pryss, R{\"u}diger}, title = {Measuring mental effort for creating mobile data collection applications}, series = {International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health}, volume = {17}, journal = {International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health}, number = {5}, issn = {1660-4601}, doi = {10.3390/ijerph17051649}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-203176}, year = {2020}, abstract = {To deal with drawbacks of paper-based data collection procedures, the QuestionSys approach empowers researchers with none or little programming knowledge to flexibly configure mobile data collection applications on demand. The mobile application approach of QuestionSys mainly pursues the goal to mitigate existing drawbacks of paper-based collection procedures in mHealth scenarios. Importantly, researchers shall be enabled to gather data in an efficient way. To evaluate the applicability of QuestionSys, several studies have been carried out to measure the efforts when using the framework in practice. In this work, the results of a study that investigated psychological insights on the required mental effort to configure the mobile applications are presented. Specifically, the mental effort for creating data collection instruments is validated in a study with N=80 participants across two sessions. Thereby, participants were categorized into novices and experts based on prior knowledge on process modeling, which is a fundamental pillar of the developed approach. Each participant modeled 10 instruments during the course of the study, while concurrently several performance measures are assessed (e.g., time needed or errors). The results of these measures are then compared to the self-reported mental effort with respect to the tasks that had to be modeled. On one hand, the obtained results reveal a strong correlation between mental effort and performance measures. On the other, the self-reported mental effort decreased significantly over the course of the study, and therefore had a positive impact on measured performance metrics. Altogether, this study indicates that novices with no prior knowledge gain enough experience over the short amount of time to successfully model data collection instruments on their own. Therefore, QuestionSys is a helpful instrument to properly deal with large-scale data collection scenarios like clinical trials.}, language = {en} } @article{NandiCrombachElbertetal.2020, author = {Nandi, Corina and Crombach, Anselm and Elbert, Thomas and Bambonye, Manass{\´e} and Pryss, R{\"u}diger and Schobel, Johannes and Weierstall-Pust, Roland}, title = {The cycle of violence as a function of PTSD and appetitive aggression: A longitudinal study with Burundian soldiers}, series = {Aggressive Behavior}, volume = {46}, journal = {Aggressive Behavior}, number = {5}, doi = {10.1002/ab.21895}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-218235}, pages = {391 -- 399}, year = {2020}, abstract = {During deployment, soldiers face situations in which they are not only exposed to violence but also have to perpetrate it themselves. This study investigates the role of soldiers' levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and appetitive aggression, that is, a lust for violence, for their engaging in violence during deployment. Furthermore, factors during deployment influencing the level of PTSD symptoms and appetitive aggression after deployment were examined for a better comprehension of the maintenance of violence. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 468 Burundian soldiers before and after a 1-year deployment to Somalia. To predict violent acts during deployment (perideployment) as well as appetitive aggression and PTSD symptom severity after deployment (postdeployment), structural equation modeling was utilized. Results showed that the number of violent acts perideployment was predicted by the level of appetitive aggression and by the severity of PTSD hyperarousal symptoms predeployment. In addition to its association with the predeployment level, appetitive aggression postdeployment was predicted by violent acts and trauma exposure perideployment as well as positively associated with unit support. PTSD symptom severity postdeployment was predicted by the severity of PTSD avoidance symptoms predeployment and trauma exposure perideployment, and negatively associated with unit support. This prospective study reveals the importance of appetitive aggression and PTSD hyperarousal symptoms for the engagement in violent acts during deployment, while simultaneously demonstrating how these phenomena may develop in mutually reinforcing cycles in a war setting.}, language = {en} }